A web log for enhancing the understanding of human impact on the natural world

Appreciating Nature's beauty through photography has been a focus of my life
since I was a teenager, but the time has come to do more. I am taking my
work in a new direction to highlight threats to the natural world. I'll
still do fine art photography, but I've come to realize that without doing
something concrete to rally public support for protection both my work and the joy we
all experience outdoors are likely to perish. My blog Seeing Nature will
share insights on current topics. You won't find environmental
extremism here; I aim to be thoughtful and critical of unsound thinking on
both sides of the discussion on conservation. Please read along, but
promise me something: After you're finished, take some action to help the
natural world. Then turn off the computer and get outside. The
quick link to this blog is http://tinyurl.com/3nau4l6

Leave No Virtual Trace: Thanks to social media sharing, mobile phones are now weapons of mass wildland
destruction

New ethics needed to address Internet-enabled mobbing of natural areas

Entry 21: April 15, 2018

By Chris Carvalho

Less than a quarter-century ago, recreationists had only
paper maps, guidebooks, and word of mouth to discover new places to visit.[1]
A few online articles were beginning to appear.
Then the Internet snowballed. In 2018 smartphones are almost universal, putting cameras, data access, global
positioning, search engines, and instant social media sharing in the hands of
nearly every tourist and hiker. This
profound change has made it possible to show a sensitive landscape to a
multitude of people at the push of a button, complete with driving instructions.
The Internet’s viral quality of unlimited replication can multiply one
picture to millions of copies and views in a few days.
As a result, delicate places have become overrun by selfie-snapping
visitors eager to document their trip to a cadre of virtual “followers.”
The integration of these technologies into smartphones has weaponized our
mobile devices into tools for wildland destruction.

Before the arrival of the Internet and smartphones, we had
to do real research to find places to enjoy solitude and the beauty of nature.
It cost us money and time to do it, and those costs put a brake on
visitation impact that kept wildland overuse in check.
In today’s world, finding information is fast and free thanks to search
engines such as Google, whose original motto of “Don’t be evil” was
dropped in 2015.[2]
Libraries, bookstores, and hiking clubs used to be where we went to
gather hiking trip ideas. Now, they
are largely irrelevant.

Readers shouldn’t get the impression of a conspiracy
here. What’s happened is that a
number of enabling technologies were invented and combined over a relatively
short time period. These
developments had the unintended consequence of greatly multiplying the number of
people who can advertise and promote the beauty of a natural site to a hungry
public anxious to find new destinations, and it’s happened at a speed that far
exceeds anything we might have imagined.

If we consider the rapid pace of change in only 25 years in
the timeline below, the next 25 years could thrust us into a situation where
serious damage to wild places may be irreversible.
We need to take action now before it’s too late.

What can be done to address the problem?
Hikers now consider mobile phones the Eleventh Essential to summon help
in an emergency. What’s missing is
guidance on limiting the impact from social media sharing. We need a new addition to the code of outdoor ethics, part of what we
know as the Leave No Trace principles. The
idea of “Leave no Virtual Trace” with the hashtag #LNVT is that new ethic.
We need it because it’s no longer enough to hike, bike, or ride our
stock responsibly and with minimal physical impact.
Even when we clean up after others, we need to take responsibility for
the real-world impact of sharing our experience online, because we can’t be
sure what others might do if they visit a spot based on our social media
posting. Leave No Virtual Trace
means, “Don’t post photos, routes, or coordinates on social media of any place that
would be harmed by increased visitation.” The slogan isn’t my creation; it came from a fellow member of an online
hiking discussion forum who suggested it in a thread I opened on this topic.[3]

I shared this idea with Dana Watts, the executive director of the Leave No Trace
Institute for Outdoor Ethics. Her response was measured, believing that no
new principles beyond what's currently adopted are needed. Rather, she
felt social media sharing can be related to the organization's existing
principles of Leave What
You Find and Be Considerate of Other Visitors. I don't think this approach is enough to meaningfully create
the changes that are needed. I've included her response below in the Appendix.

Other measures that might help include the following:

Advance warning by land managers that overused areas will be
closed or visitation restricted if social media sharing isn’t curtailed,
followed up with action if warnings are ineffective.

Incorporating the Leave No Virtual Trace principle into the
ethical code of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics (http://lnt.org/).

Standard signage that’s used worldwide at sensitive sites to
advise visitors to curtail posting on social media.

Government and conservation groups could create an open database
of areas with excessive impact. Social
media companies could check the location of posts against the database and warn
the poster of the risks and consequences of sharing, as well as remove geotags
from posted photos.

Public education campaigns to make people more aware of how social
media sharing can damage habitat, and ask users to go back through their
timelines and take down photos of overused areas to reduce future impacts.

An aggressive campaign of charging access fees at overused areas
to discourage visitation, with fee dollars devoted to site restoration and
construction of new trails to spread out the impact

Voters and conservation groups can put pressure on elected
officials to restore lost funding for land preservation and recreation
development.

Land managers should work with social media companies to enable
donations from within applications when sensitive sites are being viewed to
create a new funding source for protection and restoration efforts.

Discouraging people from posting GPS tracks of routes that aren't on
established trails. Most land managers ban unauthorized trail
construction, but a GPS track can do as much damage through the repetitive
trampling of multiple visitors following it.

Principles
of Leave No Virtual Trace #LNVT:

1. Don’t geotag photos you share.

2. Don’t post photos on social
media of any place that would be harmed by increased visitation.

3. Only post routes or tracks following maintained trails.

4. Preserve solitude by keeping it to yourself so it will be there in the
future.

5. Politely let others on social media know when their actions
contribute to overuse of recreation sites.

6. Hike device-free and enjoy
the moment.

7. Think about the consequences of posting photos; the
damage they do could be far more than anticipated.

8. Remember that when
photos or videos are shared they can multiply views and visitors
uncontrollably. Fame is not worth the damage that could result to a
fragile area.

As little as ten years ago, recreation officials were worried that hiking was in
decline and would never recover, forcing funding cutbacks and reducing the
acreage of protected land. In some
ways we can be thankful that the rise of social media has produced the opposite
problem: too many users.
Unfortunately funding cutbacks did arrive, courtesy of governments that
have diverted taxpayer dollars from public lands to other wasteful expenditures.

Social media sharing can be good when it rallies public
support to protect threatened habitat. What’s
lacking today is a nuanced understanding of when to use it properly and when to
turn off the smartphone in the interest of keeping secrets a secret.
The lure of online popularity is a calculated enticement that social
media companies use to eliminate any discretion on the part of those who post.
I’m not optimistic that people will learn to resist that temptation.

While some argue that sharing photos is harmless and it’s
irresponsible people who do the damage, it’s important to realize that a
considerate hiker who leaves no physical trace yet shares the experience online
opens a door to impact from any number of users who might view the post and
visit later. Social media sharing
makes us feel isolated from the impacts of many who follow our footsteps in the
future, but that’s a false perception. Opponents
of leaving no virtual trace say no one should control the actions of others
because it violates one’s personal freedom and responsibility.
Yet, most ethical hikers would never invite a group of strangers along on
our trip, expecting no harm will come from it.
Even if we don’t see the impact from sharing on the day of our trip, a
year later it will be obvious what happened.
It’s precisely because we
can’t control others’ actions that it’s not wise to post our photos
online.

Another argument I’ve heard is that asking people to not
post will encourage the opposite as an act of defiance.
I’m not convinced. Most of
us obey “do not photograph” policies at museums, concerts, and other events.
Museums originally said it was to limit fading from flash photography,
but most cameras today are so sensitive that flash isn’t used any more.
The real purpose of these policies is to get people to pay to attend in
person. Asking the same thing of
hikers in order to limit impact is a more noble justification and it would
likely be quite effective.

We need to consider that there have been many threats to
wild areas: motorized travel, logging, litter, livestock, energy development,
mining, housing, etc. When each was
new it wasn't believed to be a problem but when it reached critical mass, the
threat was recognized and required regulation to keep it controlled. The impact
of Internet social media is quite possibly another in this long line of threats.
It's still early, but the Internet's rapid pace of advancement is forcing us to
recognize the problem quickly and respond before it's too late. Hopefully
ethics rather than regulation can be the solution, but history says otherwise.
Because solitude is a resource worth protecting, we all must learn to
Leave No Virtual Trace.

While
You Were Out Hiking

A timeline of
developments contributing to social media’s impact on natural areas

This topic has been front and center lately for many
people, including Leave No Trace. My colleague Ben Lawhon responded recently to
a similar request for the creation of an 8th principle that would directly
address social media. This response accurately captures The Center's position on
the issue and I hope is helpful:

Thank you for your support of Leave No Trace, and for
your email regarding the use, and potential consequences, of social media. This
is an issue that we have been hearing more and more about over the past year,
and it’s something that we’re actively working to address.

There is little question that social media plays a
role in promotion of various outdoor locations, and in some cases, has led to
significant biophysical and social impacts. It’s logical to ask, “Would
this place be as impacted as it is now had it not been for Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, or Pintrest?”[sic] Social media, like any tool or technology, can be a
force for good or it can have the opposite effect. What if every social media
post also included a message of stewardship? Think how different things would or
could be if this were the case.

As technologies have evolved over the past 15 years we
have explored the potential impact to the outdoors, and in some cases, have
addressed such issues with Leave No Trace. For example, in the early 2000s when
handheld GPS units were made more accurate, more reasonably priced, and smaller,
there was justifiable concern about how these devices, and associated activities
such as geocaching, could potentially impact the outdoors. Another example dates
back to 2013 when drones began appearing on (or above) public lands. Drones are
relatively inexpensive and easy to fly. As such, there were genuine and valid
concerns about the use of such devices on public lands, which can impact
solitude and wildlife, and present privacy and safety concerns. A final example
from just a few weeks ago involves the use of personal locator beacons such as
the SPOT or the ARC ResQLink, which can be life-saving devices or lead to
costly, impactful, and unnecessary rescue operations where the user has simply
run out of beer. In each case, we have been asked to provide specific Leave No
Trace guidance by adding additional Principles. In some cases, we have provided
guidance (geocaching/GPS use) under the existing Principles and in others
we’re still working on the most appropriate strategy for addressing issues
arising from such rapidly evolving technology.

Because the current incarnation of the 7 Leave No
Trace Principles have been in place for nearly 20 years, we don’t take
discussions of significant changes lightly. Such discussions are imperative at
times but also need to be strategic, thoughtful, and measured. In the case of
addressing appropriate use of social media, we feel that it is possible and
necessary to tailor existing Leave No Trace information for this purpose rather
than creating a new Principle out of whole cloth. There are two current Leave No
Trace Principles under which social media can be addressed: Leave What
You Find and Be Considerate of Other Visitors. For each
Principle, the message about social media will encourage outdoor enthusiasts to
stop and think about their actions and the potential consequences of posting
pictures, GPS data, detailed maps, etc. to social media. Furthermore, we urge
people to think about both the protection and sustainability of the resource and
the visitors who come after them. We generally refrain from explicitly telling people
what to do in the outdoors, especially in the context of more ethical issues
such as the use of social media. The primary reason for this is that Leave No
Trace isn't black or white, right or wrong. It's a framework for making good
decisions about enjoying the outdoors responsibly, regardless of how one chooses
to do so. That said, if we can simply encourage folks to stop and think
about the potential impacts and associated consequences of a particular action,
we can go a long way towards ensuring protection of our shared recreational
resources.

As we have thought through this issue we’re left
wondering what the future will bring in terms of technology, communication, and
outdoor recreation. Will posting pictures to social media be a thing of the past
in five years? None of us know. However, we do know that it is currently
contributing to some level of impact in the out-of-doors, which is something we
are actively addressing. Not only will we encourage responsible use of social
media but we will also embolden and inspire social media users to promote and
provide a message of Leave No Trace stewardship with any and all relevant post
about the outdoors. Social media, if used the right way, is a powerful tool that
can motivate a nation of outdoor advocates to enthusiastically and collectively
take care of the places they cherish.

Please know that we are actively working to address
the intersection of social media and the outdoors through the appropriate
channels. As such, we welcome further input, discussion, and constructive
feedback.

Again, we appreciate your sincere commitment to Leave
No Trace. It is individuals like you who are making a real difference for our
shared lands.

Chris Carvalho has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical
engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a photographer
and blogger on public policy, environmental, and conservation topics.

Nature and funding largest uncertainties on path to future of trail system

By Chris Carvalho

Entry 20: January 12, 2018

This article was updated January 19, 2018 with new information supplied by
the Forest Service.

On December 1, 2017 the Forest Service held a meeting to discuss recovery
efforts in the Columbia Gorge in the wake of the Eagle Creek Fire. At the meeting were representatives from the Forest Service including Stan
Hinatsu and Dawn Stender. Oregon State Parks sent a representative. Also in
attendance were nonprofit representatives Roberta Cobb from the Pacific Crest
Trail Association (PCTA), Ryan Ojerio from the Washington Trails Association (WTA),
Maegan Jossy from Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and Steve Kruger, Jaime
English, and Tom
Kloster from Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO). There was also a prior meeting held
in Cascade Locks in October. Together, the group will be called the Gorge Trails
Recovery Team.

The focus of discussion was how nonprofits can work with the Forest Service
to aid in trail recovery and the role of federal funds in the effort. A
follow-up meeting is planned for January 2018. The Forest Service is on track to
complete assessments of affected trails by the end of 2017. Trail repair work
will wait until spring 2018 at the earliest, until the full impact of winter
weather has ended. Click here to read more.

Wake Up And Smell the Smoke

The 2017 Eagle Creek Fire teaches lessons in fire policy and involving the public in crafting it.

In the classical Greek legend of Pandora's Box, Zeus was angry
with Prometheus for giving people fire. He sent a beautiful woman, Pandora, down
to earth with a box, saying it must never be opened. She married Prometheus'
brother. Curiosity eventually overcame Pandora and she opened the box,
unleashing troubles of every kind on humans. It was the gift of fire that
started it all. Click here to read more...

Everyone's a Winner: The 2017 Solar Eclipse

Photographing the Great American Eclipse of 2017 from Central Oregon

Entry 18: September 9, 2017

Solar prominences of the 2017
total eclipse

Depending on who you talked to, the 2017 solar eclipse ranged from a
spiritual experience to the media event of the century, or possibly Armageddon. What you wanted to see in it, you found, much like a Rorschach test given to
millions of people at the same time. For me, it was the chance of a lifetime and
not to be missed. We made reservations a year in advance for a motel in Redmond,
Oregon so we could be within the path of totality as Portland is just outside it.
Already rooms were getting hard to find. By June we heard all kinds of dire
predictions of fuel shortages, traffic jams, food stores and restaurants selling
out, cell phone outages, and power failures. Newspapers said that over one
million tourists would visit Oregon for the event, causing unprecedented strain
on communities fortunate enough to be in the darkest part of the moon's shadow
for one or two brief minutes. Click here to read more...

Forest Service Hoards $14 Million from Recreation Fees; Trails Suffer

An Embarrassment of Riches, Poverty of Programs

Entry 17: October 2, 2016.

Hikers in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (CRGNSA) are familiar
with the Northwest Forest Pass, a $30 annual permit required at many sites on
federal land. The fee program operates in Washington and Oregon,
with collections allocated to participating regional forests.
Revenues in the Scenic Area have climbed steadily from $100,000 in 2003 to
$441,000 in 2015, a 7% annual growth trend. Click
here or on the chart below to read more...

An Open Letter to Governor Jay Inslee

The recent derailment and fire of a train carrying crude oil in Mosier,
Oregon led me to question the reasoning in the draft environmental impact
statement for the Vancouver Energy oil terminal and conduct an independent
review. What I found was a number
of flaws, errors, and omissions in the risk analysis. If the terminal is
built, we can expect to see
an oil release event in the Columbia Gorge once every 18 months according to
industry data. The letter below to
Washington Governor Jay Inslee explains what I found. Click
here to read more...

A Map Salem Doesn't Want You to See

Is Portland the reason Sherman County has one of the
highest cancer rates in the nation?

Entry 15: February 14, 2016.

Sometimes a map is great for improving one's perspective. Residents of
Portland, Oregon are upset about recently discovered high levels of arsenic and
cadmium at several hotspots in the city, some located near artisan glass
manufacturers using the toxic metals to color their glass. As a cancer survivor,
I too am angry at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for its
pro-business attitude that values corporate profits far above human health, even
though corporations don't get cancer.

While I care deeply about the situation and want the DEQ to serve the public's interest first and businesses' second, I found something
startling that puts Portland's problem into a wider perspective. My natural
suspicion was that cancer rates in Portland would be the highest in the state,
owing to the greater concentration of industry, automobiles, and their pollution.
I was wrong. Here is a map of cancer incidence (all types and all races) in
Oregon showing how cancer rates vary by county.

The map comes from the National Cancer Institute website and one can easily
generate a map for any state and most cancer types, categorized by race and sex
if desired. The tri-county Portland metro area (Washington, Clackamas, and
Multnomah counties) has an average annual incidence rate of 445 cases per
100,000 population. That's slightly below the national average of 454. The
average rate for Sherman (dark red), Gilliam, and Morrow counties (from left to
right above, with Portland General Electric's Boardman coal plant in Morrow County and
Arlington's Columbia Ridge Landfill in Gilliam, serving Portland) is 540 cases
per 100,000. That's 21 percent higher than Portland. Sherman County's rate of
587 is an atrocious 32% higher and ranks as the 14th highest of 2,919 US
counties with reported data.

While the outrage in Portland over arsenic and cadmium is certainly
justifiable, there should be even greater outrage about the situation in Morrow,
Gilliam, and Sherman counties. The coal plant (slated for closure
in 2020) and landfill deserve careful scrutiny to find out if they are
causing these high cancer rates. While the lack of regulation of arsenic and
cadmium is troubling, our state authorities need to devote even more attention
to understanding and doing something about cancer rates in the rural counties
east of us, especially if Portland is exporting its cancer risk there along with
its solid waste and coal-fired power emissions. Note: It may not be only
Oregon's problem. The Roosevelt
Landfill, of similar size, is located in Washington just across the Columbia
from Arlington. It handles waste from all over Washington.

The evidence that Portland could be the reason for these rates is admittedly
circumstantial. But the high rates in these rural counties are not.
I have sent a letter to Oregon's state epidemiologist asking whether this merits
concern and will post an update on her response.

Every time we in Portland throw out the trash, turn on a light, or charge our
iPhones, we should thank the residents of the counties downwind from Boardman.
If they are giving their lives for us to have our electricity and garbage
service, will we do anything for them in return?

Chris Carvalho has a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical
engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a photographer
and blogger on public policy, environmental, and conservation topics.

Eat Organic, or Die

Roundup®: Not just for weeds anymore; it’s in our breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I’ve always trusted our foods to be safe to eat. In the
summer of 2015, that changed. After
some meals I felt miserable, with intense pain in the small intestine. I feared I might be
experiencing a return of the cancer I’d been treated for in 2011. That turned out
to be wrong, thankfully. After
further research and experimentation with my diet, I’ve concluded the pain is
from emerging contaminants in the food supply that the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) should be monitoring and regulating. The contaminants
are glyphosate and surfactant additives, used in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup®
and similar products from other manufacturers. Click
here to read more...

Heat Wave Cooks Washington's Monarchs

Record heat decimates fall migrating population

Entry 13: August 19, 2015.

In mid-August, a group of volunteers (including myself) planned to work with
Professor David James of Washington State University to tag monarch butterflies
at a site near the town of Vantage and monitor their fall migration. The
work was cancelled due to poor emergence of the fall migrating population of
butterflies. According to Dr. James, only about three potential migrant
monarchs per hour were observed around August 17th and 18th. It's a
devastating count compared to the same time in 2014, when around 22 per hour
were observed.

It's the first year since he's been monitoring the site that the population
has declined in August. He believes this is due to a heat wave that
happened at the same time that the first generation of butterflies was due to
emerge as adults at the site in late June and early July.

A WSU climate recording station 2 miles from the Vantage site recorded an
average maximum temperature from June 26-July 10 of 103.1ºF. Every day
during this period exceeded 100ºF with a maximum of 109º on June
28.

Map from The
Weather Channel showing the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the month
of June

According to Dr. James, "These temperatures exceed optimal temperatures
for Monarchs by a significant margin and appear to have had a detrimental effect
on population development and survival."

Monarchs face many threats to their future as a species: habitat loss,
loss of milkweed from rapidly expanding herbicide use on farms, deforestation at
their overwintering sites in Mexico, and now it appears that climate change may
pose yet another threat.

I will follow this story and write more as additional information becomes
available.

Oregon's Liquid Gold

Bottled water is big business in Oregon, and the public is the loser

Entry 12: April 23, 2015

Nestlé water: $2.88 per gallon, about the same as
gasoline for you and me. But Cascade Locks
plans to steal it from public land and sell
it to Nestlé for less than 0.2 cents per gallon (two
tenths of a cent!)

It rains a lot in Oregon. So it seemed that the Nestlé proposal to
bottle a little bit of spring water in the Columbia Gorge wasn't a big
deal. It's only half a cubic foot per second, and one tenth of the total
volume coming from Oxbow Springs. It creates 50 jobs and property
taxes for the struggling town of Cascade Locks. What could possibly be
wrong with that? Click here to read
more...

Anatomy of a Clearcut

Entry 11: February 8, 2015

SDS Lumber is a timber company operating out of the town of Bingen,
Washington. At the end of 2011, it logged 110 acres of land above the Historic
Columbia River Highway State Trail in Mosier. The site consists of two
parcels, about one third owned by SDS and the remaining two thirds owned by the
Warm Springs Tribe. Trees on the site were burned in the 2009 Microwave
fire, and a clearcut operation was conducted to salvage the burned
timber.

The resulting deforested
area was an eyesore that appeared seemingly overnight and angered
residents, who had no idea it was happening. The site was on land in
the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area designated as General Management
Area (GMA) Open Space, where timber harvest was thought to be
prohibited. The logged area was visible from towns, trails, and the
major highways in both Oregon and Washington. The historic highway trail's character
was seriously impacted (Figure 1). Click
here or on the photo below to read more and take a virtual tour of the
clearcut up close...

Sadly, the preferred lab I've used for printing since 2000, Udevelop/Digicraft
in Portland, Oregon closed its doors on December 23, 2014. I've worked
with them over those years and together we navigated the transition from
traditional darkroom enlargements to digital optical printing on photographic
paper. But the handwriting has been on the wall for several years now that
there is a shakeout of fine-art print shops in progress. They weren't the
first lab to close, nor will they be the last. But the world lost a great
resource for making and seeing the beauty of art photography. Click
here to read more.

This Picture Is Illegal

Proposed regulations to require Special Use Permits for commercial
filming/photography

Entry 9: September 26, 2014

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet

Yes, this picture is illegal. It was taken while US Forest Service
interim directive 2709.11-2013.1 was in effect and is (gasp!) For Sale.
I was unaware I needed a Special Use Permit just to carry a camera into a
wilderness area, take the photo, and show it to you so you could appreciate the
beauty of wilderness free of charge, and if inspired, buy a copy to hang on your
wall. The Forest Service is taking comments on this
policy, so I
wrote the letter below. Please add your voice and support free access
for photography. Without a backlash from the public, we'll all suffer
a great loss as our government erects another barrier to appreciating
nature. Click here to
read more.

Open Letter to Mt. Hood National Forest

Improved bridge needed to stop hiker deaths

I'm going to take some heat from the Forest Service for not sharing this
letter privately. However, I've watched this situation evolve
since I moved to Oregon in 1981 and hiked to Ramona Falls at least once a year,
and I'm fed up. Public pressure is the only way to change it. On
August 12, 2014 Brent A. Ludwig, a 34-year-old man visiting from New Lenox,
Illinois, was crossing the Sandy River on the Ramona Falls trail during a severe
thunderstorm that poured around an inch and a half of rain in less than an hour
on the slopes of Mt. Hood above the trail's bridge, where he was crossing with a
group of 19 others. A flash flood washed away the bridge, and he was
carried to his death as his wife looked on. The day of Ludwig's death I
was planning a hike on Mt. Hood, but canceled it when I checked weather radar
and saw severe thunderstorm warnings on the mountain.

This isn't the first time. In August 2004 Sarah Bishop, who was a
skilled hiker, died under similar conditions in another rainstorm. Click
here to read more.

The Eighth Wedge

Entry 7: November 7, 2012

If you have read Al Gore's book "An Inconvenient Truth," Page 280 has a
chart of seven wedges representing different approaches to controlling carbon
emissions contributing to climate change. The chart is based on a paper by
Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala published in the journal Science.
The paper proposed seven strategies to level off emissions: energy efficiency,
renewables, clean coal, forests, soils (stop deforestation and agricultural tilling), fuel switch (coal to gas, oil to heat pump, etc.), and
nuclear power.

The premise of the paper is that there is a way to control carbon emissions
through these techniques that could successfully mitigate human impact on
climate. However, even though the paper talks about current technologies,
there are many uncertainties in the success of these strategies. Clean
coal, for instance, could be too costly to implement and it relies on unproven
technology such as carbon capture and storage. But what if we were
overlooking an eighth wedge, a strategy that doesn't require any new technology
at all?

Roadside Trash: Causes and Solutions

Entry 6: March 29, 2012 (updated October 23, 2012)

For several years I've picked up trash along different stretches of roadway.
I do it to make the world a better place and as a way to do exercise that
produces a benefit to society rather than just to burn calories. Trash
pickup is an endless job though; it's hard sometimes to realize that there's no
way to make permanent progress.

While doing all that work I have plenty of time to think and I've come up
with some ideas that might make a dent in roadside litter. It started with
analyzing what gets thrown away. Much of the trash comes from products
involved with addiction, such as beer cans, liquor bottles, and cigarette boxes
and butts. A lesser amount is fast-food packaging and cups, followed by
food packaging from the grocery, and finally random non-food items. Below
is what I found on a recent cleanup trip along Old Highway 8 near Lyle,
Washington. This road is near a lake, so there's a disproportionate amount
of fishing items such as bait cups. Other than that, it's fairly typical.
Contrary to what most think, I've never found drugs or syringes over the several
years I've done this work. We hear about it on the news a lot, but most
trash is quite boring.

Washington Parks' Discover Pass: The $10 Picnic

Entry 5: March 8, 2012

"They took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum / And they charged
the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em." -Joni Mitchell,
"Big Yellow Taxi"

On March 7, 2012 I visited Beacon Rock State Park in Washington to hike the
Hamilton Mountain trail. I knew there was a new user fee for visitors because Washington is facing a budget shortfall and wanted park users to pay
up. What shocked me was the $10 fee for one day's use at Washington
parks. This is called the "Discover
Pass." What it looks like to me is that Washington is doing
everything it can to discourage people from using their state parks, especially
if the visitors aren't wealthy. Perhaps a better name for this fee is the
"Discourage Pass." Click here to read
more.

Wind Turbines Blow Away Gorge Views

Entry 4: July 2, 2011 (updated January 11, 2013)

March 5, 2011 update: Governor Gregoire has approved the Whistling
Ridge project. Unfortunately, she will be remembered as the governor who
trashed the Gorge by allowing wind power development just outside its boundary,
opening more land to this kind of destruction. Donate to Friends
of the Columbia Gorge if you are in favor of challenging the decision in the
courts.

In view of the monumental damage this decision will cause to the region's
scenery by opening up wind power development to all comers, I think it's time to
rename Whistling Ridge to Gregoire Ridge:

Gregoire Ridge: Decidedly unscenic for the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area

Image credits:
Photo by Karen Chandler
Simulation of turbines by
GeoDataScape, Inc.Note: This is a simulated image,
not a real one. The turbines shown
have been approved but not built
yet.

Making Conservation Dollars Work: Why I left The Sierra Club after 28 years

Entry 3: January 14, 2011

In my last posting I said I'd be writing about some major changes in my
conservation giving. Recently I sent a letter to the president of the
Sierra Club informing him that I am ending 28 years of contributions to his
organization. The text of the letter is reproduced below. It stands
on its own to explain my reasons for leaving, but I also want to briefly
summarize my thinking. I also sent another letter to a local
mountaineering organization resigning my membership for similar reasons.

When I take hard-earned money and give it to a conservation group, I'm doing
it for several reasons. I want to multiply my voice by acting in concert
with others who share my views. I'm trusting the group to do good things
with my funds. I value the group's expertise in making good decisions and
prioritizing how much effort is spent on each one. Finally, I expect their
efforts to have some tangible benefit in my own life and the enjoyment of nature
I value so highly. What I hope is that everyone reading this thinks
carefully about what their reasons are for donating, and holds organizations
accountable for acting responsibly with their money.

In the Sierra Club's case, in 2008 the organization had $87 million in income
according to the BBB's
Wise Giving Report. When I look at how much money the Sierra Club is
spending on its programs and the lack of scientific, fact-based reasoning behind
their initiatives, I now realize that it's an incredible waste of the public's
conservation dollars. The club has become so politically charged in their
communications that it's no longer an environmental group, it's a political one.
Much more good could be done if the money were spent more efficiently and in
results-oriented ways.

After I wrote my letter, I found that the club wrote an
article saying that Australia "appears to be reaping the climate chaos
it has sown" in response to recent flooding in Queensland and drought
across the country. Irresponsible statements such as this are not the way
I want my money being spent, especially when so many have died in this
catastrophe. While Australia bears some responsibility for climate change,
any blame for the disaster has to lie proportionately with those doing the most polluting, and that would be China
(#1) and the USA (#2); Australia ranks 16th in
the global tally of carbon emissions. Clear thinking is a requirement for
any organization deserving my contribution. We all need to work together
to tackle climate change, and the Sierra Club is fond of pointing fingers rather
than encouraging cooperation.

Before joining any organization, check out its record with
the BBB or Charity
Navigator. Look at their website and publications and be certain your
money will work hard for the environment. Reevaluate how they are doing
every year, and don't be afraid to speak out when they're not meeting your
requirements.

Update: As of April 5, 2011 Mr. Brune has not
responded to my letter. I don't expect he will.

I'm 51 and have belonged to the Sierra Club since I was 22.
Over that time I've given thousands of dollars to the club. This year, I'm
ending my membership. It wasn't an easy decision, but I felt that given the
amount I've contributed and the time I've been a member you deserved to hear
about the reasons I've grown disappointed enough with the club's direction to
leave it.

It would be wrong to look at my decision as rooted in the
adage that people grow more conservative as they age. If anything, I have become
more of an environmentalist as I've grown older. What has changed about me is
that I've become a lot savvier about how to advocate for change, and the club
hasn't kept pace, despite being a much older organization than I am. I'm going
to take my money and put it where it can do the most good for the environment,
and that's not with the Sierra Club.

When I joined the club, I did it to add my voice to a larger
one advocating for protection of the wilderness and a healthy environment, much
as John Muir wrote. What I found happened in the intervening years is that the
club has taken my money and devoted much of it to things that have little or no
bearing on those core principles. It makes sweeping statements that have no
basis in fact as if they are Gospel. The club's website proudly claims that John
Muir appears on the back of the California quarter. How can that possibly mean
anything tangible about the club's integrity or effectiveness in modern times?
It's not an award from impartial judges, and Muir isn't alive to comment.

I've watched as the club has grown much larger and its staff
have become incestuous, taking on a purpose of their own that feeds on their own
thinking, rather than listening to member concerns and ensuring that larger
goals align with those concerns while staying true to core principles.
Organizations can multiply the power of their members, but at other times they
give into the temptation to create new initiatives that members didn't want or
need. As an example, the Sierra Club sent me an email today about how to choose
toothpaste with the smallest carbon footprint. What a waste of my membership
dollars that was. My choice of toothpaste isn't your business; it's between my
dentist and me. Fire the staffer who's writing about green toothpaste choices
and use the person's salary to hire a conservation lobbyist or do television
advertising; that's what the Sierra Club should be doing for its members.

Branching out into areas that aren't key to the club's core
principles reduces the power you can wield through staying focused and putting
more dollars to work where they can do the most good. Every dollar you receive
should go to influencing the public or government officials, or to programs that
actually clean up the environment or preserve natural areas. There is a huge
expense going toward sending information back to members that we really don't
care about. I want my dollars directed toward changing government policy and
educating the public who thinks we are a bunch of granola-heads, not going to
messages to membership on how to be green to the point where one can't live a
moment without guilt about our choices. Your goals will be achieved only when
the public sees that the club is looking out for their welfare and therefore
responds with support. Today, the club is making enemies from people who could
be your best supporters.

Let me give you an example of an outstanding organization I
belong to that has its priorities straight and is making a real difference. It's
the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand (http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/).
I found out about it on a trip I took to New Zealand a few years ago, and joined
immediately. They have a tough job, but they are amazingly effective in
protecting biodiversity, gaining public support, and implementing programs that
make a difference on the ground rather than waste dollars to fuel useless
political infighting. This year I took the money I was going to send to the
Sierra Club and sent it to them. Some great domestic organizations are The
Nature Conservancy, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Beyond Pesticides, and
Amphibian Ark. They also deserve my money because it goes to work with an
efficiency that the Sierra Club can only dream about.

Another big concern of mine is the club's lack of attention to
complexity when it communicates to the public and decision makers about
environmental issues. Two major initiatives come to mind that illustrate this
problem. One is the "Beyond Oil" campaign. The second one is the
club's emphasis on wind power as a green power solution. On both of these topics
the club has fallen into the trap of becoming a polar opposite of the
conservative community, and articulating a solution that grates on the public as
being environmentally extreme.

What I expect to see from the club in response to disasters
such as the BP oil spill is a program of practical, realistic ideas to reduce
our dependence on oil, not the idea that we can totally eliminate its use. There
is no way we can do that any time soon given the number of automobiles, buses,
and trucks in service worldwide. We won't move this concept from a dream to
reality without solving many technical and political problems. Americans simply
won't accept the sacrifices that would come with eliminating petroleum use in 20
years. That's a given. What the public needs to see from the club is ideas that
will reduce oil use without creating excessive inconvenience for the public or
business, along with increased funding for research into the most important
advances we need to get there, including biofuels and large-scale energy storage
to smooth out the intermittent power from wind and solar energy.

Automobile use can be made much more efficient by batching up
small errands into a larger trip, and by installing equipment that monitors
traffic on roads and links to navigation systems in cars to show the fastest
route to a destination that's updated in real time. That use of technology isn't
even on the radar in the club's thinking. People need to drive; what the club
can do is show them ways to do it smartly so we accomplish what we need and gain
something useful such as more time by being more efficient, instead of the
philosophy that the only way to reduce oil use is to make driving inconvenient,
more expensive, and hit people in the pocketbook (not a great way to curry favor
with the public.) A traffic-monitoring network would create jobs nationwide as
well as provide great benefits for everyone in terms of saving valuable time.

The club pushes bicycling as a significant way to reduce
energy use but again the idea lacks practicality. Biking sounds great until
you're seriously injured from an accident. It's not wise to bike in bad weather
or at night, and bikes don't work well for people who must travel long
distances, take along the family, or need to haul large items. Try asking
someone who lives in rural Kansas to take a bike to Home Depot to buy lumber.
When the club's ideas draw laughter from anyone with common sense, you know they
are in need of revision. Cycling has a high priority in the club because many of
the staff are young people living the myth of immortality who haven't had enough
time on the road to see how dangerous cycling actually is, especially in urban
areas. They also don't have families and don't understand why the public finds
cars to be a much more practical way to meet their needs. Don't get me wrong; I
think cycling is great exercise and fun if done on safe streets, but it's not a
solution that will get us off of oil. It's a misguided and confusing message
that needs to stop. This example shows that there is a demographic mismatch
between those who make up the club's staff and the public they're trying to
influence. True progress is only possible when the club makes an effort to
understand their audience.

The club has fallen in love with wind power as a solution to
our energy needs but hasn't come to grips yet with its drawbacks. Wind turbines
as designed today kill birds and bats, are an eyesore, and have many deleterious
effects on humans as well as animals due to the noise and pressure fluctuations
that happen near them. They require construction of many miles of high-voltage
power lines and often the power from installations is sold to distant regions
while local people must deal with the negative impacts. Faraway corporations
make the profit from the wind farms and very little money stays in the local
community. It may be possible to solve these problems, but the jury's still out
and the club shouldn't be promoting them as a panacea unless it's also strongly
advocating for policies that solve the drawbacks of wind power.

The club has also lost its impartiality and hasn't been
critical enough of the Obama administration in a number of areas. Since most
club staffers and most members are Democrats, there is a culture that emphasizes
partisanship over impartial advocacy for the environment regardless of the party
in power in Washington. The club should be very vocal when it comes to the
administration's cover-ups about the BP oil spill, denying scientists access to
the site who have valid reasons to gather data about the spill's impact. It
should also be quite critical of the administration's refusal to list endangered
species such as the sage grouse simply because there is insufficient funding.
The ESA doesn't give government the right to choose which species are endangered
based on funding. If populations are low and habitats are threatened, the
species deserves to be listed. The club needs to put partisanship aside and set
an example for the public that the environment is what counts first and
foremost, not the party affiliation of people in it. Again, you send a confused
and hypocritical message to the public when it's wrong for Republicans to spoil
the environment, but Democrats get a pass because they're the lesser of two
evils.

The club relies too heavily on ideology in place of science to
guide its decisions and initiatives. In the area of climate change a
cap-and-trade system is a great idea, but implementing it or a carbon tax or
expecting nations to agree on binding international treaties is not likely to
happen in the next 20 years, especially with the new Congress. Given this
reality we need practical approaches that don't require federal legislation to
succeed. There are many other ways to achieve reduced emissions that are not as
politically volatile as the club's approach. One area where the club could make
dramatic progress is in championing the idea of installing solar power
generation on rooftops, especially in places where current policy limits
financial feasibility. If policy changed, significant generation capacity could
open up that would not have the environmental impacts that wind farms do.

For instance, schools, warehouses, and health clubs have large
roof areas, but schools are closed in the best months for solar power and
warehouses and health clubs are typically in leased buildings, where the
landowner has no incentive to install solar generation because the tenant is
paying the power bills. If a public utility were to install, own, and maintain
the equipment, these places could be immediately put to use in generating power.
Solutions such as this are how we will make progress on reducing carbon
emissions, not by putting a tax on carbon. Expecting Congress to solve our
environmental problems is not only unlikely, it's a waste of good money to even
try. It's better to work at a local level where pilot programs are easier to
create and once they succeed are likely to spread nationwide.

Along similar lines, while the club has emphasized national
campaigns such as "Beyond Oil," and branched out into unnecessary
areas such as toothpaste choices, it has in the process lost touch with
important local issues. Two examples come from the Portland, Oregon area where I
live. In our region we have a large off-reservation casino proposal in the
Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. This casino would destroy scenic views from
roads and trails, contribute to global warming through lengthy vehicle trips
from the city of Portland where most patrons live, harm salmon and plant
habitat, create traffic congestion and light pollution at night, and increase
the fire danger in nearby wilderness. When I contacted the local chapter about
opposing this project, they didn't even respond to my email. After that incident
I had to seriously question why I belonged to an organization that didn't do
anything substantive to oppose a project with this kind of environmental impact.

Another time, I learned that Oregon has a hunting season for
the sage grouse where on average 900 birds are killed annually. When the Obama
administration refused to list this bird as an endangered species purely because
it didn't have the money in the budget to handle the cost of doing so, I
contacted the local chapter and asked them to cry foul. They refused to do
anything about it even though there were opportunities to get press articles
published and influence our governor and legislators. The reason given was that
the club had important initiatives in the early stages at the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife, and they didn't want to do anything that would "piss
off" the people there and possibly endanger the success of those projects.
Now why would I want to give money to a club that purports to be an advocate for
conservation but won't even go to bat for a species that is endangered and has a
legal hunting season in place, just to save face with a few state officials? Mr.
Brune, where are your principles when they are needed to protect these helpless
birds?

When I look at the largest impact the environment has had on
me and my family, it is in the area of disease. Parkinson's disease and two
kinds of cancer have touched us. There is growing evidence that chemical
contamination plays a role in these diseases. Look at your web site; toxics
reduction is buried in the "more programs" section while Beyond Coal
and Clean Energy get top billing. The club's priorities place toxics much lower
than global warming and oil dependence, and it's a major reason why my money is
better spent elsewhere. It's not that I don't care about those causes or think
them unimportant, but I know that making progress on controlling dangerous
chemicals in food, air, and water is something we can achieve far more easily
than reductions in carbon emissions and petroleum use. Rather than making noise
for its own sake, the club needs to do a better job understanding the
cost/benefit relationships for environmental initiatives and put the money where
it's going to accomplish the most change. The public is far more willing to
support initiatives that improve health than it is to give up their cars, pay
more for electricity or fuel, or make time-consuming changes to live a
zero-waste lifestyle. I expect the club to have a full-court press on requiring
disclosure and regulation of toxic chemicals in consumer products, and to rally
the public to the cause long before it tries to address ending our use of
petroleum. The priorities here are completely reversed.

This is a lot to say, but it needs to be said. I hope someday
that I'll be able to rejoin the Sierra Club because it's become a more effective
force in putting conservation dollars to work. I'll be watching to see what
happens.

Sincerely,

Chris
Carvalho

In Business For The Wilderness

Entry 2: July 27, 2010

In the 1980's I took a trip to the Rogue River to get acquainted with Oregon
after moving here in 1981. I took some day hikes, and did some fishing and
car camping. One afternoon I gave myself a nasty cut on the thumb while
fishing. I bandaged it up, but was concerned if I needed medical
attention. At the campground I met a wonderful couple; the husband was
retired from the Forest Service and the wife was a nurse. She looked at
the cut and said it would be OK. Later that evening we had a conversation
that to this day shapes my life.

The talk turned to protecting the outdoors and the retired ranger told me,
"In my history with the Forest Service I've seen that corporations view the
wilderness as a resource to be exploited for profit. They realize that
there is a cost to secure that profit, so they set aside significant money to
aid them in getting the access they need. It's simply a business expense
to them.

"The problem with environmentalists is that they don't see the value in
preservation. They expect the land and the recreational services such as
trails and campgrounds to be provided for free. When you see as I have the
amount of money being spent by corporate interests to develop wild places for
profit, the environmentalists don't have a chance unless they change their
thinking to realize that this is really a game of competing dollars, with the
winner spending the most money to influence government.

"Every time you hike a trail, visit a campground, or drive to a scenic
vista, you need to calculate the value of that trip and give that money to an
organization you trust that will protect what you enjoyed."

Oregon's Mt. Hood and the Muddy Fork of the Sandy River,
McNeil Point Trail. How much is this view worth to you?

As soon as I returned from the trip, I joined the Sierra Club and The Nature
Conservancy. Since that time, I've donated a lot of money to various
organizations. Some have done well with it, others not so well. I
plan to make some major changes in my giving soon and I'll write about
that. I will say for now that The Nature Conservancy is still doing great
work and deserves your support.

In the 20-plus years since that memorable evening, I've been drawn back to
the notion that the lack of attention to preserving the natural world comes down
to the simple fact that people who enjoy Nature don't put their money or time
where it can make a difference. Every night, thousands of hikers post
photographs online in web forums hoping to get a "frequent poster"
star rating. If they took that time and wrote letters to elected officials
instead, something truly worthwhile might result.

We all need to be "In Business For The Wilderness." Big Oil,
Big Energy, Big Mining, and Big Housing all know the value of developing wild
lands to their future profits. The conservation community needs to
understand the value those lands have to their own future and the planet's well
being, and start paying that value to influence those in power who make the
decisions.

The Windmills Are Coming

Entry 1: June 6, 2010

The Columbia Gorge faces many development threats. This one wasn't even
on the radar screen ten years ago. But in the past few years as I hike and
even drive the roads something is slowly creeping into my conscious perception,
bit by bit. As I drive east starting near Hood River, in the far distance
there's now a white jagged appearance to the horizon. At the top of the
McCall Point trail on any clear day the wind turbines are visible.
Eastward from there, on just about any high peak one can see a forest of white pinwheels
is growing.

The shot above was taken from the top of Stacker Butte, also called Columbia
Hills State Park. It is just a small piece of a much larger
panorama. I am providing the full image so you can appreciate the
impact. Remember that it is copyrighted, so any publication or
non-educational use must be licensed by contacting me. To download it, click
here. This is a 1.7 MB file, so it may take some time to
load. The view is toward the east with the farms of the Klickitat
River valley in the foreground.

Once you open it, you will see thousands of turbines. My camera isn't
good enough to show the most distant ones, but if you look closely they extend
almost to the left (north) and right (south) edges of the view. They are
getting closer to the edge of the Scenic Area boundary. In fact, a project
called Whistling Ridge is in the approval process right now just north of Hood
River on the Washington side of the Gorge, and it will be on the edge of the
boundary and visible from Nestor Peak and Mitchell Point. It is a
galling insult to the spirit of the Scenic Area Act to place a wind energy
project a stone's throw from the regional boundary and call it compliant with
the Act.

Now I'm a big fan of renewable energy, but something about this march of the
turbines reminds me of what happened when The Dalles Dam was built and drowned
Celilo Falls. We didn't appreciate what we lost at the time, and now it's
unlikely we'll ever get the falls or the salmon back for decades to come, maybe
never. Early research is documenting how these turbines kill birds and
bats (1), and it's obvious what they do to the view. They also create
noise pollution that aggravates nearby residents as well as jams the
communication calls birds and other creatures use for breeding, finding food,
and predator avoidance. We've got to stop
building them so close to the Scenic Area until we know more about their
long-term effects, and also come to an understanding about how much visual
impact we should tolerate. In the meantime, we can look at something
proven to meet our growing demand for energy that doesn't have any negative
impacts. It's called conservation.

Few of us realize the rapid pace of this change. Soon it won't be possible to go on a
hike to a viewpoint anywhere in the eastern end of the Gorge and see a pristine
east horizon. Most of it is already gone. The view of the
horizon was something I took for granted. Today I realized it's been taken
from us and might never come back.

Your comments will likely carry more weight if submitted to the Bonneville
Power Administration (BPA). The Washington EFSEC typically defers to the
wishes of rural counties, which are hungry for the tax dollars these projects
provide. The counties have a history of ignoring the environmental impact
when corporations wave money at their officials.